


Triumvirate

by OssaCordis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Angst, Childhood, Death of a pet, Drug Use, Friendship, Gen, POV First Person, Siblings, Sociopathy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OssaCordis/pseuds/OssaCordis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trio of 221Bs concerning the three most important men in Sherlock’s life.</p>
<p>(Takes place post-TSoT.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Triumvirate

When – after a few years of guilty anguish – Mum and Dad realised that they had not somehow ruined me _in utero_ , and that indeed I was ‘above average’, it was decided that what I really lacked was focus, not intelligence. I cannot say who decided this. Miss Davies, at the infant school? Dr Harris, the GP? Mum? Dad?

It certainly wasn’t you, Mycroft. You had yet to achieve such a level of pomposity that you believed you could meddle in my life. That wouldn’t come until my university days.

You never liked Redbeard. He was to be my responsibility. Something to keep me grounded. I adored him. He was also a distractor. I was less interested in you, less charmed by your games, less likely to blindly follow your lead...

Hereditary epilepsy. Devastating, but not uncommon in Irish Setters. Phenobarbital worked, for a time.

He never would have hurt anyone. I wonder, often, if you intentionally provoked him as he came out of an episode.

No dog, in actuality, is allowed one bite.

Redbeard was sent away, to a farm where he would feel better, Mum and Dad said.

You told me the truth: euthanasia. You were so nauseatingly pleased with yourself.

“Caring is not an advantage.”

Your perennially favourite phrase.

Brother mine, with each passing year you become more banal.

* * *

A disguise is always a self-portrait. The Woman knew that. So, too, is a label.

I call myself a sociopath, comfortably shrugging into the term like a coat, wrapping it around me as a guard against emotions (mine, and others’). I know what I do. It is a conscious choice. To feel nothing –faultless objectivity – is the ultimate goal. Though, I never fail to fall short.

You did not know (or, perhaps you did), what I would have given on that rooftop to feel the same blunt heartlessness that was inherent in you. To be immune to caring who lived or died. To walk away, unscathed, and gain two years of life.

Two years, Moriarty. Two years lost to running and fear, a hand to mouth existence as I dismantled your empire. And how elegant an empire it was, and how much I yearned to let it be!

We worked at cross purposes, you and I, but wanted the same thing.

To not feel.

To make it stop.

The ceaseless monotony. The habitual tedium of existence.

Your mistake was in not feeling; mine, in feeling too much.

We could have been a hell of a team.

But I have seen what emptiness has done for you. And, instead, I choose a different life.

I care.

But does that make me better?

* * *

Sex is a fundamentally selfish act. Love, even more so.

I do love you. All-consuming, asphyxiating, infernal, destructive love.

(Though is there really any other kind?)

I cannot give you what you want. Not directly. But I can stand aside and let you have your happiness. I would break every bone in my body, and spill all my blood. I merely pretended to before, but I would not hesitate to make it real. For you. Always you. And I can let you go, too. If I must. If it’s what you want.

You, John Watson. You keep me right.

And without you…?

I am no stranger to being alone. I do not necessarily equate it with loneliness. Or, once I did not. I filled my time with other pursuits, repelled boredom with chemical pleasure, honed my mind to a knifepoint. Loneliness is not felt by those who have never had a friend. How was I to know?

So, John. You call me your best man, say nothing will change between us. And yet, the average person loses two platonic friends when they become involved in a romantic relationship. I hardly imagine that I am a desirable friend to retain, in the grand scheme of things.

Go, John, and be happy. Do not worry.

For me, there still remains the cocaine bottle.


End file.
